Hershel Parker

I wasn't sure what I was going to think of this book going into it because some people had told me it was really boring--it was one of my "I'm *obligated* as a person educated about literature to read this book" additions to my library. But I turned out to really enjoy it. Parts of it were very exciting, the symbolism was intriguing, and even the "whaling manual" stretches I found interesting because I like it when books teach me about things I don't know anything about. The only times it lost me were when it went off on total tangents like "And now I'm gonna describe paintings people have made of whales!" Ishmael/Queequeg are my OTP, and I related just a bit too much to Ahab.… (meer)

I read this in my first year at The Evergreen State College, in October 1982, under the guidance of Professor Bob Sluss, who loved this book, and so helped me to love it, too. I found a short essay I wrote in my Grinnell journal: "Call me Ishmael." Simply, yet strongly, Melville introduces his novel, Moby Dick. I am thoroughly enjoying that which I had so many assumed misgivings about The Christian allusions are confusing at times, but a web to unravel. Melville's descriptive style of writing brings the reader closer to the characters and situations, and adds humor an romanticism to his portentous story.

Melville's humorous allusion to Adam and Eve as "the two orchard thieves" and his story of Bildad using the Bible only to further his own practical needs, reveals, in part, his sarcasm and confusion about organized religion. His romantic style is revealed in the quote of "the landless gull" on the "Common Knowledge" page.

The life of a whaleman is tranquil at times - one hears no news and entertains no worries about the attainment of one's next meal. this reminds me of the time I've spent at a Wyoming dude ranch, eighty miles from the nearest large town. Often we didn't hear of the death of a notable person until days or even a week after the occurrence.
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Hershel Parker is the greatest biographer and scholar of Melville ever. His two-volumed, weighty bricks of a biography are unmatched (though not everyone's cup of tea, for sure). Here is a sort of memoir of a scholar's pursuit of his biographical subject, a memoir of the writing process, and a memoir of the jagged world of academe. On that last, the back-biting, the sniping, the hoarding of hoards of documents, the sometimes bitter professional duels. Parker can sometimes come off as prickly, but, if so, it is only because fellow scholars have been prickly, rude, or spiteful first. Take, for instance, Melville's "lost works": The Isle of the Cross and Poems (pp. 190-192). Several authors on Melville lambasted Parker for helping to unearth the existence of these lost books in Melville's biography (alas, the works themselves are still, mostly, lost), some even accusing him of error, but these same authors then make use of Parker's info in their own works. Dastardly.

Parker is often excoriated, though, because he is not a postmodernist. English lit types these days take any text they want and make what they want of it. In Melville's case, lit-crit theorists take scraps of text and scraps of bio and spin tales of Melville-the-wife-beater, or Melville-the-homosexual. When Parker points out lack of any real evidence for these suppositions, in fact, evidence AGAINST these very things, he's disparaged as an old fogey, a varorium-loving textual antiquarian who has had no new ideas since Ike was president. That is a shame and a calumny. Parker's biographies are monuments to the historical art. His work on the Collected Works of Melville are monuments to the art of textual criticism. His commentaries are monuments to true exegesis. This memoir is a monument to Parker's life and tenacity.

Will we ever see "The New Melville Log" though?

If Parker didn't hate tobacco, I'd like to sit down and have a long talk and "segar" with him (as Melville was wont to do).… (meer)